Louise was in a crumpled dressing-gown, and her hair was loosened from its coil on her neck. Maurice saw so much, before she was close beside him, her eyes searching his face.
"Oh, you have come," she said with a sigh, as if a load had been lifted from her mind. "I thought you were not coming."
"I only got your note a few minutes ago. I ... I came at once," he said, and stammered, as he saw how greatly illness had changed her.
"I knew you would."
She did not give him her hand, but stood gazing at him; and her look was so helpless and forlorn that he grew uncomfortable.
"You have been ill?" he said, to render the pause that followed less embarrassing.
"Yes; but I'm better now." She supported herself on the table; her indecision seemed to increase, and several seconds passed before she said: "Won't you sit down?"
He took one of the stuffed arm-chairs she indicated; and she went back to the sofa. Again there was silence. With her elbows on her knees, her chin on her two hands, Louise stared hard at the pattern of the tablecloth. Maurice sat stiff and erect, waiting for her to tell him why she had summoned him.
"You will think it strange that I should send for you like this ... when I know you so slightly," she began at length. "But ...since I saw you last ... I have been in trouble,"—her voice broke, but her eyes remained fixed on the cloth. "And I am quite alone. I have no one to help me. Then I thought of you; you were kind to me once; you offered to help me." She paused, and wound her handkerchief to a ball.
"Anything!—anything that lies in my power," said Maurice fervently. He fidgeted his hands round the brim of his hat, which he was holding to him.